Mullah Mansour used Pak passport to travel

Islamabad refuses to confirm Taliban chief’s death, says US justification is ‘against international law’

Pakistan was not ready to confirm Afghan Taliban chief Mullah Mansour’s death on Tuesday even after US President Barrack Obama made the announcement.

Officials here said the Taliban leader’s death remained a mystery and Pakistan could not confirm it until solid evidence had been obtained.

Pakistan’s interior minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said he could not confirm that Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour had been killed in a US drone strike and that he will only confirm his death if the DNA report verified it. He described Washington’s justification for the attack as “against international law”.

He said the government was investigating the whole issue and was concerned over the extension of the US drone attacks to Balochistan.

After US authorities claimed to have killed Mansour in a drone strike, two unidentified dead bodies were found near a destroyed vehicle in which Mansour was believed to be travelling in Ahmed Wal area of Balochistan’s Noshki district.

The bodies, charred beyond recognition, were shifted to civil hospital Quetta where one of the victims was identified by his brother as Muhammad Azam of Taftan area. He was said to be a taxi driver.

The second man was identified with the help of an undamaged passport and a computerised national identity card found near the burnt car bearing his name Muhammad Wali, the resident of Chaman. Pakistani authorities said the passport contained a visa for Iran.

There are no reports on the whereabouts of Mansour’s body. It is suspected that Mansour used to carry fake travel papers in the cover name of Muhammad Wali and was killed along with his driver. The Pakistan government summoned US ambassador to Islamabad David Hale Monday to lodge a protest for carrying out the drone strike.

Meanwhile, a media report said Tuesday that the Afghan Taliban chief was a frequent flyer and used a Pakistani passport for his visits abroad for over nine years.

Mansour was coming to Quetta from Taftan, Balochistan, when his car came under the drone attack. “Wali” frequently travelled between Karachi and Dubai, and Iran via the Pakistani border town of Taftan. He had returned to Taftan from Iran on May 21 and was killed the same day at around 3pm.